


Separation

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, the fic is basically a conversation between jamie and victoria, the two/jamie is discussed but not really present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29605623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: He would bring her back down to earth soon enough, she knew. There would be some comment, some little in-joke that reminded her of how similar they really were, and then they would be off, the pair of them laughing at the mad world they had ended up in. But for now he was a stranger, and she missed him with a biting sort of loneliness. He had been with the Doctor for a long time, he always said. A year, the Doctor had told her. Was that how long it would take her to become someone else?Victoria realises that Jamie is less familiar than she had first thought.
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Separation

**Author's Note:**

> on [tumblr](https://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/post/643727309856194560/separation).

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for the Doctor?”

Scoffing – though not unkindly – Jamie waved one hand dismissively and carried on down the hill. “What for?”

“Well, we -” Victoria frowned down at the city sprawled out below them. It was a messy, colourful thing, all bulbous curves and soft edges. Every building seemed crammed with decorative ridges and growth-like additions and hazardous-looking spires. When the Doctor had said this city was beautiful, Victoria had imagined something like Bath, a pleasant resort-town, in contrast to the crowded, fuel-choked shipping ports they had sometimes visited. But this city looked more vulgar than attractive, some half-monstrous over-performance of style. There was something unsavoury about it, she was sure. But she did not know how to put any of that into words in a way Jamie would understand. “We might get into trouble,” she finished awkwardly.

Jamie waved his hand again. “We’ll be fine,” he said airily. “It’s the Doctor who usually gets himself in trouble, no’ us.”

Somehow, his words failed to comfort Victoria. “Then we shouldn’t leave him alone,” she protested. “We should go after him.”

“Ye can always go back tae the TARDIS, ye know.”

She threw him a sullen frown. “I know.”

“We’re just goin’ tae have a wee look,” he carried on, as if he had not noticed her scowl. “That’s all. If the Doctor wants tae go an’ talk tae some _scientist_ -” He did not quite spit the word out, but he said it like it was bitter on his tongue. “Then we can go an’ explore a wee bit, while we wait for him.”

He had done his best to keep his tone neutral, she could tell, but there was still something off about it that she could not quite put her finger on. Was it resentment? No, she thought – what would Jamie want with the scientist? He had quite plainly known nothing about _semi-quantum fluid physics_ , or whatever it was the Doctor had been raving about back in the TARDIS. Surely he could have no reason to regret not being invited along. And the Doctor would have let him come if he had asked. Besides, he had seemed keen enough to visit the city. Unless - “Jamie,” she said, turning slowly to look up at him, “are you _jealous_?”

“No!” he protested, too quickly and too firmly. “Don’t be silly, I’m not -”

“You are!” she exclaimed, crowing out a triumphant laugh. “You’re jealous that the Doctor’s gone off to talk to someone.”

“I’m no’,” he insisted, but his cheeks were red, and he sounded far too guilty for her to believe him. “Of course I’m no’ jealous.”

“All because the Doctor’s giving his attention to someone else for once.” But she paused, her satisfaction dampening down into awkward regret. The Doctor was distractable at the best of times, flitting from one thing to another as each caught his interest. And then there was Jamie – steady, loyal, dependable Jamie, who she felt sure would go to the ends of the universe with him if he asked, always following along behind. Did he think, she wondered, that the Doctor might one day lose interest in him too, drop him for something bright and shiny and entertaining? Suddenly the whole business did not seem quite so funny. He was still plodding along next to her, red-faced and silent. “Jamie,” she said hesitantly, “you do know that – well -” Should she be saying this? Was it her place? “The Doctor really does love you,” she finished hastily.

Jamie choked out something wordless, spluttering at her for a long moment. She had not believed it possible for his face to turn any more red, but he certainly seemed to have managed it. “What?” he all but cried out eventually. “What do ye mean?”

“Just that -” She was blushing too now, she was sure of it. It would have been far better not to say anything at all. “Just that – you don’t need to worry, just because the Doctor’s gone to talk to this scientist. He comes back because he wants to be with you.”

“Victoria -” Shaking his head, Jamie opened and closed his mouth no less than a dozen times, apparently lost for words. “I meant it, I’m not jealous.”

She frowned at him. “But you didn’t sound happy about it.”

“Aye, alright. But jealous isn’t the right word for it. I don’t care who the Doctor talks to.”

“What is the right word, then?”

He scrunched up his face. “Dunno. Envious, maybe. I’m no’ -” He laughed. “It’s no’ like I think he’s about tae run off with someone, if that’s what ye think. I’ve been with him long enough tae know that.”

Had her thoughts really been so obvious? It had been silly of her, she scolded herself, to think that Jamie did not know the Doctor well enough already. They trudged on in silence for a few more minutes, Jamie setting his jaw like he was determined to say no more. Victoria glanced up at him a few times, but his eyes were always fixed firmly on the path before them, and her questions faded away before they could even reach her throat. She stared out at the city instead, trying to settle her thoughts on what might lie within it.

“I’m no’ jealous,” Jamie repeated, scattering her thoughts again. “I just wish I could keep up with him sometimes, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Victoria bit her lip. “You know he doesn’t need you to, don’t you?”

“Aye, ‘course I do.” Jamie’s eyes were still set straight ahead of him, not even glancing towards her. He had acted out this argument with himself many times over, she realised, his every answer rehearsed and refined. She was simply playing the part of some voice within himself. “Doesnae stop me wishing.”

“I suppose so.” Nudging his side, she gave him what she hoped was a bracing smile. “What do you think we’ll find down there?”

Jamie shrugged, but not dismissively, and a smile was already creeping onto his face in return. “Shops, I ‘spose. Holiday things. What ye normally find in these places.”

Wrinkling her nose, Victoria surveyed the buildings laid out before them. Coming closer had done nothing to improve the prospect of the city. If anything, the colours seemed to have grown brighter, and the shapes more ludicrous. “Why on Earth did they build it like that?”

“Hey!” Jamie’s voice was full of mock-offence. Whatever hurt she had caused him, she thought with a touch of relief, it had not lasted long. “This sort of place is very fashionable, ye know. They built them all over this galaxy.”

She stared at him. It should have been obvious before – he had all but told her he knew what they would find down there – but only now had the meaning of his words sunk in. “You’ve seen places like this before?”

“Aye. ‘Couple of times. They thought people would feel like they were havin’ more fun if they made them colourful, ye know. An’ I think it works.”

Victoria could not imagine that anyone would be fooled into having a good time by such offensively-coloured architecture. But Jamie was chattering away happily about the place, and it was as plain as day hat he was parroting back things the Doctor had told him, but he said it so _easily_. Like all this talk of spaceships and low-gravity arcades came naturally to him. There was a sort of confidence about him that she had seldom seen, a kind of excitement at being the one who knew the most, for once.

“Tell ye what,” he was saying, “there’s always these wee ice cream shops, an’ they do this flavour – it sounds awful, they call it locust jelly, but it’s no’ really locusts, an’ it’s nice. I’ll buy ye some.”

A small part of her shuddered at the thought, wanted to turn him down, but she was too distracted to open her mouth. Jamie was _like her_ – or at least, she had thought so, from the moment she found out where he was from. He shrugged along with her at things the Doctor insisted would be perfectly normal in the Earth’s future, and preferred cooking his own food to using the Doctor’s precious food machine, and laughed with her at the Doctor’s more alien antics. He might have been born a hundred years before she was, but there was something warm about him that reminded her of home, a sort of softness in the face of the future’s hard surfaces and bright white lights. And yet here he was, telling her about an alien planet like he belonged there, digging out a handful of striped tokens from his sporran and handing her a few. Strolling down an alien road, alien names rolling off his tongue like he had been born with them in his mouth. She had misjudged him so completely, thought he was less than he was, and it seemed so silly of her to have imagined that he was still insecure enough to think the Doctor did not love him.

He would bring her back down to earth soon enough, she knew. There would be some comment, some little in-joke that reminded her of how similar they really were, and then they would be off, the pair of them laughing at the mad world they had ended up in. But for now he was a stranger, and she missed him with a biting sort of loneliness. He had been with the Doctor for a long time, he always said. A year, the Doctor had told her. Was that how long it would take her to become someone else?

Jamie paused in his rambling, tilting his head to look at her quizzically. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just thinking.” Linking her arm through his, she squeezed his elbow tight against her side. “I’m glad I have you,” she said, and that was the truth of it, even when he seemed so different. “I wouldn’t dare go out on my own without the Doctor.”

“Neither would I, when I first started out.” There he went again, talking like he had been at this forever. Like they were not the same at all. “An’ if it was somewhere else then maybe it’d be different. It’s just that these places are all a wee bit the same, that’s all. An’ -” He leant in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t think the Doctor will be too long with that scientist, ye know. He cannae resist any sort of holiday place.”

There he was, the Jamie she knew. She giggled back at him, raising her hand to his mouth like the Doctor might appear behind them at any moment. “No, he can’t,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll make a perfectly good guide until then.”

He was quiet for a moment, mouth slightly open. “Will I?” he asked, sounding as surprised as if the thought had never occurred to him. Had he never realised? she wondered. Did he not know how comfortable he seemed, so far away from home?

“Yes.” She squeezed his arm again. “Yes, you will.”


End file.
